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Prague dentist says he has found Nazi hoard
By ČTK / Published 20 December 2007
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Praha/Stechovice, Central Bohemia, Dec 19 (CTK) - Prague dentist Petr Kaspar said Wednesday he has managed to find the site where the "Stechovice hoard" with valuables and documents was allegedly deposited by the Nazis at the end of World War Two.
A number of treasure hunters have spent decades in a futile search for the hoard.
"We can say we definitely know where the site is," said Kaspar who has been looking for it with another two helpers for over two years.
Kaspar said German soldiers had hidden the crates in various caches and he had managed to find one of the biggest one in a backfilled mine.
Kaspar says there was gold stolen by the Nazis from a bank in Belgium and various documents and valuable original insignia of Charles University in Prague.
"We even have the number of the crates that were driven away shortly before the Prague uprising on May 3, 1945. As the Germans could not have gone far, everything indicates that we are in the right place," Kaspar said.
The three men based their search on the testimonies of surviving contemporaries and maps as well as aerial photographs and various documents.
"It is nothing secret, these are generally accessible documents," Kaspar said.
Based on them, a hiding place was found near Stechovice where the entry is covered under a five-metre earth layer.
Kaspar said while previous treasure hunters only managed to see objects in the depth of less than half a metre with the use of their equipment, he and his assistants managed to detect objects within a five-metre depth with more modern equipment.
"This only confirmed what we had learnt from the documents. We also have various testimonies that put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together," he added.
There is a mass grave with the remains of the prisoners who worked in the mine near the site, Kaspar said.
There are bodies of 200 Russian female prisoners who wrapped up the crates in the mine, he added.
There is just the last step with which to corroborate the theory, Kaspar said. A probe with a camera should be drilled that would film the crates located in the tunnel, he added.
Kaspar said he would ask the state for help since the costs might reach hundreds of thousands of crowns he did not have.
Out of many treasure hunters, Josef Muzik and Helmut Gaensel were the most active in the 1990s in their search for the "Stechovice hoard."
Both of them said they were close to the find, but later stopped their effort on account of lack of money.
kenb
By ČTK / Published 20 December 2007
RSS feeds
Bookmark
Praha/Stechovice, Central Bohemia, Dec 19 (CTK) - Prague dentist Petr Kaspar said Wednesday he has managed to find the site where the "Stechovice hoard" with valuables and documents was allegedly deposited by the Nazis at the end of World War Two.
A number of treasure hunters have spent decades in a futile search for the hoard.
"We can say we definitely know where the site is," said Kaspar who has been looking for it with another two helpers for over two years.
Kaspar said German soldiers had hidden the crates in various caches and he had managed to find one of the biggest one in a backfilled mine.
Kaspar says there was gold stolen by the Nazis from a bank in Belgium and various documents and valuable original insignia of Charles University in Prague.
"We even have the number of the crates that were driven away shortly before the Prague uprising on May 3, 1945. As the Germans could not have gone far, everything indicates that we are in the right place," Kaspar said.
The three men based their search on the testimonies of surviving contemporaries and maps as well as aerial photographs and various documents.
"It is nothing secret, these are generally accessible documents," Kaspar said.
Based on them, a hiding place was found near Stechovice where the entry is covered under a five-metre earth layer.
Kaspar said while previous treasure hunters only managed to see objects in the depth of less than half a metre with the use of their equipment, he and his assistants managed to detect objects within a five-metre depth with more modern equipment.
"This only confirmed what we had learnt from the documents. We also have various testimonies that put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together," he added.
There is a mass grave with the remains of the prisoners who worked in the mine near the site, Kaspar said.
There are bodies of 200 Russian female prisoners who wrapped up the crates in the mine, he added.
There is just the last step with which to corroborate the theory, Kaspar said. A probe with a camera should be drilled that would film the crates located in the tunnel, he added.
Kaspar said he would ask the state for help since the costs might reach hundreds of thousands of crowns he did not have.
Out of many treasure hunters, Josef Muzik and Helmut Gaensel were the most active in the 1990s in their search for the "Stechovice hoard."
Both of them said they were close to the find, but later stopped their effort on account of lack of money.
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